This invention relates to a V-belt transmission apparatus using a metallic belt and more particularly, to the V-belt itself.
The inventor herein has disclosed in his copending U.S. application Ser. No. 589,285, filed Mar. 14, 1984, a V-belt transmission having an endless belt, a plurality of V-shaped members and intermediate members disposed between adjacent V-shaped members. During operation, the metallic belt member is bent as it passes around V-pulleys in the transmission. This bending action is repeated each time the belt passes around a pulley.
In some of the embodiments disclosed in the copending application, the belt is formed from a plurality of layers. With belts of this type, it is desirable to uniformly apply the bending stresses acting on the respective layers which form the metallic belt member, in order to improve the useful life of the belt member. Where the layers which form the belt member all have the same thickness, an inner layer thereof has a smaller turning radius which results in a larger bending stress and thus more fatigue. Thus, the useful life of the V-belt is decreased.